The Coolidge Examiner

THE NUMBER ONE PROBLEM!
It has become obvious to almost everyone that labor is the Number I problem in the defense drive. On April 5th, defense director Knudsen said that 90 per cent of strikes must be eliminated or the defense program will fail. Under the best of conditions our arms program is not coming up to original hopes, and when strikes occur precious days and weeks are irretrievably lost.

The waste occasioned by strikes was computed in one of General Johnson's late columns. According to him, during January, February and the first three weeks of March, the strike toll was 1,129,000 man-days. And that, as he further observed, does not tell the whole story.

Many of the strikes took place in key factories, the result being that other factories could not get needed materials, so hundreds of thousands of man-days were lost elsewhere.

Labor's excuse for strikes is that it is not now getting its fair share of profits--that the industries which have been given war contracts are rolling up unprecedented gross revenues, and that the worker should be paid substantially more, and be given other, non-monetary benefits in addition. This argument may be valid in some cases. But, so far as most industries are concerned, gross profits are a poor gauge of net profits. The tax burden alone is taking most of the increased earnings, and there can be no doubt that taxes will be still higher in the years to come. Furthermore, the very pace of the drive is adding heavily to industry's operating costs. You can carry on an operation in the most economical way when you have plenty of time--you must often take the most expensive way when the days are flying by and a deadline for delivery is at hand. The cost of most raw materials is on the rise. Long ago, top government officials said that no one is going to get rich out of this war. That will be pretty largely true. Through taxation, the government can control and limit income just about as it pleases.

A number of thoughtful friends of labor are of the opinion that the strikes are, in a sense, suicidal--that they may alienate public good will to the extent that the immense gains made by labor during the past eight years may be lost. Every poll indicates that the public is "fed up" with what it regards as labor racketeering. They indicate an over-whelming majority of citizens favor some sort of forced mediation by government that will prevent strikes. As Raymond Clapper, a columnist who certainly has never been anti-labor, recently wrote, "Don't think that thousands of families, into whose homes conscription has reached, will not support the Roosevelt Administration if it is driven to take the hard-boiled way. Mr. Roosevelt will have public sentiment fully behind him."

This feeling is obviously shared in government circles. According to columnists Alsop and Kintner, "Such episodes as the Allis-Chalmers strike have filled the Congress, the best of all reflectors of public opinion, with violent resentment. The demand for strong measures to deal with the labor situation would have produced results long ago had not the House and Senate leaders struggled manfully to hold their followers back. The demand will soon grow too pressing to be ignored."

In short, unless labor "listens to reason," you can look forward to severe laws to control strikes. The late defiance of Secretary Knox and Commissioner Knudsen by a CIO leader in the Allis-Chalmers strike was almost universally condemned by the nation's press. And the threat of far more important strikes in our most vital industries has caused some meaningful fist-clenching in Washington.

As the President has said, profiteering industry will also get short shrift. Government, through the priority system, can literally choke any business into submission. If worst comes to worst, he can use the power to commandeer. Labor leaders are mistaken if they think they can get away indefinitely with holding up the defense program. This is more than an arms drive--to millions of Americans it is a crusade. And they mean to see it through.